Bali Hai- 4- Ubud

On the last day of our trip, we bid farewell to the Gangsa (only when they kicked us out at check-out time) and headed to Ubud to check out the sights and pass time until our 10:00pm flight. 

Dave playing the Gangsa. 

Bye Bye Kajar!

Ubud is the "cultural-center" of Bali and home to lots of lovely shops and cafes and plenty of art galleries. We didn't get a chance to visit last time- too focused on the beach- so our 10 hours to kill before the flight proved to be the perfect opportunity to go explore. 

As per our routine, our exploration of Ubud consisted of walking, drinking beer, eating, walking. We also threw in some shopping and monkeys for good measure. 

Having beer at a beautiful cafe. 

The good life. 

At one of the bars we saw this large black thing moving around in the trees. On closer exploration, it was a massive BAT! Hanging upside down in the tree, in the middle of the day!

This bat was bigger than a terrier. We are talking BIG. Don't bat's sleep during the day? 

After many a few beers, we headed down the hill to see the most famous Ubud attraction- the Sacred Monkey Forest. And boy howdy were there monkeys!

After paying our entrance fee, we gleefully bought a mountain of mini bananas from the locals selling them at the gate. This was our first big mistake. The monkeys, those smart little devils, wait at the entrance to pounce on unsuspecting tourists with freshly purchased bananas. I had my hands full of my camera and a pound of bananas and they were quickly swarming. I quickly tossed some bananas to the attackers and fled to safety. Thankfully, my husband came to the rescue and took command of the banana situation. 

Note the pants. This was a HUGE mistake. Add to the fact that he had hidden bananas in his pockets, this man was a walking monkey target. And the monkeys LOVED him. Loved the banana pants. 

Dave decided to see if the monkeys knew how to catch. To mixed results. 

First try:

Second try: 

Hugh victory for the monkey. The first miss resulted in a larger monkey scoring the banana. It could have been the beers we were consuming prior to the monkey forest, but these monkeys were so darn entertaining!

Oh yea, there were temples in the forest too.

Turns out we broke a few of the cardinal rules of the monkey forest:

After all the monkeys, we had one last Bali beer to top off our great vacation. 

Bye Bali- we hope to see you again soon!